Chapter 40
by jmsutherland
Summary: Bad omens.


Page **13** of **13**

**Chapter XL**

Sally no longer found the walk round to Angua's house in the morning nearly as enjoyable as she once had; for a number of reasons. One, she was hungry. Bernie had decided to close down his butcher's shop, albeit temporarily, because the flies had become just too annoying and far too unhygienic. Of course there were other butcher's shops still open, but they were far too dirty and, in any case, the meat wouldn't have been nearly as good. The second problem was the flies themselves. Of course it was summer and you hand to expect flies, especially in a city, and Cheery Littlebottom had told her that the fact that flies lived off carrion and filth, and carried disease with them, made them essential to the whole ecosystem, whatever that was. Apparently, they were more important even than bees, and far more important than vampires or even humans though not, strangely, than dwarfs. Sally was, as always, easily won over by reason, but did there have to be quite so many of them!? And did they have to try to fly into your mouth? There certainly hadn't been this many of the things the previous summer, nor any other summer while she'd lived in the city. The third reason was the heat.

Sally had been born in the little town of Bonk, in the mountains of Überwald so she was more used to the cold, but she had travelled extensively and it could get very hot in Urt -on the edge of the Great Nef- and in Kythia, for that matter. She'd also lived in Ankh-Morpork for over twenty years, so this was her fortieth summer, and she was used to how sweltering they could get. But they'd never been as hot as this before, probably ever. And it wasn't just the heat, though that would have been bad enough, there was also what she felt she could only describe as sticky humidity, plus it felt like there was far more than the normal pressure, whatever _normal_ was supposed to be. And to top it all there was never any sunlight. It might seem a trifle counter-intuitive for a vampire to complain about the lack of sunshine –and for sure she was never going to try to "soak up some rays" in her _tiny-kini_ like the Fourecksian barmaid, Sheara- but she would have appreciated the occasional break in the clouds. Instead there was just this rumbling thing that never cleared and yet never developed into a proper storm either. As if on cue, there was a flash of lightening and for a second she could have sworn she saw… No, she shook her head. There were many parts of her human half that she liked and appreciated, but seeing things that weren't there wasn't one of them. The long wait for the thunder told her that the storm was many miles away. Not that it mattered. Everyone seemed to have grown resigned to the fact that the storm just wasn't going to break -it was simply teasing them- and it was never, ever going to rain again. Some people thought it hadn't rained in months. Sally could have told them that that was ridiculous. It only hadn't rained for forty-two days. She also knew, having checked the records kept in the archives of the Museum, that this was three times longer than it had ever not rained before.

Another thing that was weighing on her was that she wasn't helping Angua with the childcare, even though she'd promised she would. She'd been totally sincere in her offer, but she hadn't so far done anything about it. She thought the Disc of Wolfie and she absolutely adored little Ironhammer, but she was now pulling double-shifts: working both the Day and the Night Watch without a break. There weren't many races that could work twenty-two hours a day, eight days a week; after all, even trolls needed some sleep though it maybe wasn't very much and gargoyles needed to be unalert on occasion, albeit briefly. So the double-shifters were: Harry, Sally and Vlad, plus Vlad's Mouldavian friend Estragon. The four Golems: Sergeant Serger plus constables Politsyant, Vatsher and Ovent Ale. Plus Constable Ron Knee, who was a zombie. There was also Phungus, apparenty, though how anyone could tell was anybody's guess. Anyway, no time for babysitting, which she surprised herself by finding she actually missed. At least her hour's break would be relatively fly-free. The problem for everyone was that it was far too hot to keep the windows closed but as soon as you opened them the flies got in, in fact they seemed to get in even when you didn't open them. It was a continuing source of amazement to Sally that flies seemed to find it very easy to get in through an almost closed window but impossible to get out through a half-open one.

Of course Carrot, being a dwarf, had come-up with a solution: he'd fitted mesh screens over the windows and a sort of curtain –made of weighted strips of canvas- over the doors: it parted easily to your hand and closed immediately behind you before the flies could follow.

As soon as she walked through the door Angua called out to her from the sitting room:

"There's a steak in the pantry for you under a glass cover. We don't want you eating the children after all, do we?"

The volume said that little Ire was either not at home or was up and about. She hoped it was the latter.

"Heavens forfend," she called back, "is it fresh?"

"I think I just heard it moo."

The steak was indeed fresh, so fresh in fact that Sally suspected that there was a cow nearby that was walking with a limp; it looked so tempting that she almost went crocodile on it, but contented herself with a large first bite and then took her plate into the sitting room.

Ire was in her playpen but looked so happy to see her that Sally picked her out of it, kissed her, cuddled her and then sat down with the baby in her lap. Angua was sewing.

"I didn't know you could sew," said Sally.

"I'm just a poor girl," said Angua, "of course I can sew. Can't you?"

"I don't sew; I embroider," Sally replied, curtly, "only servants _sew._"

"Oh, aren't you the posh one?" sneered Angua.

"And isn't your father a baron?"

"If he could see me now," Angua laughed.

"If MY father saw me sewing he'd probably drive a stake through my heart."

"Well, would you mind embroidering a repair on some of Wolfie's breeches? I swear I don't know how he manages to tear-up so many clothes, you'd think he carried a knife."

Sally put Ire back in her pen with a kiss and then curtsied to Angua:

"Of course, ma'am, whatever you wish, ma'am," she said, picking up needle and thread and a pair of little trousers.

"And I'll have less of your cheek, young lady," laughed Angua.

"Yes, ma'am," said Sally, "sorry, ma'am. Where is Wolfie, anyway?"

"His dad's taken him to the Hall: he had to see the duke, and you know how much Wolfie loves Young Sam. What's wrong?"

Angua was slightly concerned as Sally had a strange look on her face while she stared at a little spot of blood on her thumb.

"I've just pricked my thumb," she said, distractedly.

"Oh, I did that earlier," said Angua, dismissively, "small world, eh?"

"Small talk," said Sally, in an odd voice, still staring at the tiny bead of blood.

"Eh?"

"Not very good at it."

"Oh, for gods' sakes," Angua said, "it's only a pinprick, what's the big deal, would you like me to suck it for you?"

"I have led a very long life, Angie Baby," said Sally, slowly, "and I have never done that before. Ever."

Kate had almost finished clearing up the debris from the previous night on her own when Sheara turned up. Patrick was busy in the back room bandaging his hand again. He'd taken to punching people in the street whenever they said things like: "Send them back where they came from, I say." Or "String 'em up; it's the only language they understand."

"Oh, I know it's wrong," he'd explained, "I could break my hand hitting them with a closed fist, but it feels so much more satisfying."

All three members of her staff were now Special Constables with The Watch so she mostly had to look after the pub by herself. That was alright, she supposed, as when her staff were out patrolling then half of her clientele were doing likewise while most of the other half were being the nuisances that The Watch were on the lookout for in the first place. This was, of course, very bad for business, or would have been, but for the fact that at the end of the shift they would all come back to get smashed, oh, and smash the place up a bit. This might also have been bad for business but for the fact that all customers were required the put money in the Outback. This was a box that was kept on the "Naughty Shelf" and was intended cover breakages. Every so often Kate would breakout the money to replace all the broken tables, chairs and glassware. Everyone seemed happy with this outbreak repair work and considered it an even break.

She assumed that the momentary distraction was what made her cut her thumb on a sliver of glass.

"You're back late, girl, was it a rough night?" asked Kate.

"Just the usual," said Sheara, "Bruise took me for breakfast."

"That was nice of him, was it a special occasion?"

"He proposed to me," the girl replied, looking slightly perplexed, "he said that if we're going die we shouldn't die alone," she concluded with a sigh.

"How romantic," said Kate, rolling her eyes. Though this was, apparently, what passed for _romantic_ among poets, she'd assumed that young people would have a bit more sense.

"He's gone off to buy a ring…" said Sheara. Nothing like the spur of the moment, thought Kate.1

"…but he gave me a rose," the girl continued, holding out the flower. "Ow!"

"What's wrong?" asked Kate, suddenly concerned.

"I've pricked me thumb on a thorn," said Sheara.

"What a coincidence," said Kate, though she didn't think that chance had anything to do with it.

Sacharissa was at work again, even though it was Sunday and there would be no edition of the _The Guardian_ the following day. She had sort of come round with a half an idea to take Gudrun out for the lunch that had been so abruptly interrupted the previous Octday but, having long since run-off the Sunday late-edition, the dwarf was now out on the streets doing her duty as an Acting Constable in The Watch. In any case, the truth was that for Sacharissa being in the office took her mind off what was happening to Honeysuckle. Where was she now, after all? What was happening to her? What if the Bothermore organization had discovered that she was the source of the leak…? Also, if she were honest, it was a bit scary out on the streets these days. Oh, she could easily be tough and put it to the back of her mind when she was chasing a story but she couldn't entirely forget it. It was dangerous out there, and she wasn't even Omnian, though –apart from on Thursdays- it was difficult to tell who was and who wasn't. Some of the old people still had funny foreign accents, but the large majority of the city's _Omnians_ had actually been born in Ankh-Morpork, and so had most of their parents. Though the pure Omnians all had brown skin and blonde hair there had been a good deal of interbreeding and also a lot of Omnians were now trying to disguise their looks.

Another benefit of being in the cellar was, almost uniquely these days, the complete absence of flies. At first she'd thought it was because the place was cool, dark and very clean –the typesetter was a sorceress with a mop and bucket- but it turned out, Gudrun had told her, that there was a more straightforward explanation: Selene didn't like them. Nobody did, of course –not even dipterists- but nobody, and nothing, went where Selene didn't want them.

On the other hand, although sitting around the office felt safe and was pleasantly fly-free, she was bored.

"I'm bored," she told William. She was sitting in his office fiddling with one of his pencils.

"Then why don't you go and find a story; it's what we pay you for, after all."

He was working furiously on yet another editorial and didn't like being interrupted.

"There only is one story," she huffed, "and I've covered that."

This was true. Since _The Guardian_ had broken the story of the "Bothermore Conspiracy" less than a week before it was all people wanted to read about; this was good for business, naturally, and since _The Guardian_ had decided to come down from the paling and start calling a spade a shovel it was sellinglike toasted muffins. Of course it helped that none of the other papers wanted to write about the story at all. Oddly enough, they didn't seems to want to fill their pages with made-up stories intended to stir up hatred towards Omnians either; not since it had become undeniable that that was what they had been doing all along anyway. This had left them at something of a loss as there is a limited appeal in: who's famous and who's not, who's still famous, who's going to be famous soon…lost kittens, lucky escapes, domestic disputes, recipes and knitting patterns. Hells, even _The Guardian_ could outsell that; though not by as much as she'd expected. Yes, _The Guardian_ was now the largest selling newspaper in the city –and therefore on the Disc- but people still bought _The Banner_ and _The Post_, especially the latter, even though there was nothing of anything in them that could be of any interest, to anyone. Apart from people seeing the head of a pig or the head of a snake in lightening strikes, but the novelty of that wore off quickly too. It wasn't even as though the amount of hatred or the number of acts of violence directed against Omnians had decreased in the absence of _The Post_'s urgings; quite the reverse, if anything. Mind you, William had always insisted that the Bothermore Press was a symptom, rather than the cause, of that disease. It looked like he'd been right.

For her part, Sacharissa had enjoyed the first few days of exposing the dirty tricks of the hate-mongers or the: "sly, sneaky secrets of the crafty, cunning campaigners". She'd loved chasing up the visits of the officers of the Watch to the offices of the various papers and other implicated organizations. And she'd positively gloried in the continued, _unexplained_ absence of the editors of the papers and the heads of all the _citizens'_ collectives. But there was only so much you could write about one topic, though try telling that to William. The only other thing worth reporting was the continuing epidemic of anti-Omnian hate-crime and that was, though necessary, just depressing.

"Ouch!"

"What happened?" asked William, concerned.

"Do you really have to keep your pencils so sharp?"

"Yes," he said. "Why, what have you done?"

"I've pricked myself on this one," said Sacharissa, holding up her thumb to show the spot of blood on it.

"That's funny," he said, "Gudrun did that earlier."

"On one of your pencils!?" she asked, incredulously.

"No," he said, dismissively, "on a splinter of wood off the press."

"Has she ever done that before?" asked Sacharissa, suspiciously,

"I don't think so," said William. "Why, is it important?"

"I suppose not," she said. Actually, she knew it _was_ important; she just didn't know why.

Neither Tiffany nor Agnes had turned out to be much good at being Watchmen; they were much better at being nurses but were, unsurprisingly, even better at being Witches. Nurse Shame had spotted Tiffany casting a spell to rid one of the wards of flies- their ability to carry disease might be good for helping things rot, but it wasn't very useful in a hospital- and had immediately told Blister, who had told Matron. The upshot was that the two of them had spent the next three days performing the _Avolare_ ritual in every: ward, examination room, operating theatre, waiting room, kitchen, laundry, cupboard, nook, cranny and corner in the whole hospital. They'd also been asked to do it in the Nurses Home. Not for the convenience of the nurses, of course, –no one cared about them- but as a preventative measure, to stop them bringing disease to work. That's why they were there now.

Agnes found Tiffany standing in one of the empty common-rooms staring out of the window and picking idly at the sill.

"You're thinking about Moo, aren't you?" Agnes asked.

"Oh! Er, yes," said Tiffany. Her thoughts had been leagues away. "How could I have let that happen?" she asked, plaintively.

"We," Agnes corrected her.

"No, she was my responsibility," Tiffany said.

"She was _our_ responsibility," Agnes insisted, "and we'll get her back."

"How can you be sure!?" asked Tiffany, desperately.

"Because the Wee Free Men are looking for her," Agnes reassured her.

"Oh, I suppose so," Tiffany agreed, reluctantly.

There was a sudden flash of lightening and they both looked at the strange after image while they waited for the thunder.

"It's a very long way off," said Agnes when the soft rumble finally arrived.

"Have you noticed anything odd about the lightening around here?" Tiffany asked.

"Like it looks like a pig's head?" Agnes asked.

"Or a snake's?"

"Or both. Do you think it means something?"

"Oh, it certainly means something," said Tiffany, "but I have no idea what. Ow!"

"What is it!?" asked Agnes, startled.

"Oh, nothing," said Tiffany, "just a splinter." She held up her thumb and watched a drop of blood fall onto the windowsill."

"I did the same thing just five minutes ago," said Agnes, with a certain foreboding in her voice.

"By the pricking of my thumbs…" said Tiffany.

"…something wicked this way comes," said Agnes.

1 Actually, Bruise always carried a ring "just in case" but never a good one. Clearly this was special.


End file.
